The new image, captured earlier this year by Hubble's brand-new Wide Field Camera 3, shows a cosmic pillar of gas and dust piled high in the Carina Nebula.

Located about 7,500 light-years away in the southern constellation Carina, it shows a craggy mountaintop that is enshrouded by wispy clouds which would not look out of place in JRR Tolkien's epic fantasy or even a Dr Seuss book.

It captures in amazing detail the chaotic activity atop a three-light-year-tall pillar of gas and dust that is being eaten away by the brilliant light from nearby bright stars.

Nasa scientists say the scorching radiation and streams of charged particles from super-hot newborn stars shape and compress the pillar, which in turn causes more new stars to form within it.

They say the colours in the image reflect the glow of oxygen (blue), hydrogen and nitrogen (green), and sulphur (red).

“We wanted to have an image that will be at least as spectacular as the iconic ‘pillars of creation," Mario Livio, of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, toldScience News in refence to the widely reproduced 1995 Hubble image of the Eagle Nebula.

The telescope, which is named after the American astronomer Edwin Hubble, has attracted intense criticism since its launch due to its high cost and early problems.

It has however, helped to answer questions about the age of the universe, revealed information about how planets form and shown that massive black holes dwell at the centre of galaxies.

“Hubble is undoubtedly one of the most recognised and successful scientific projects in history,” said Ed Weiler, the associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at Nasa Headquarters in Washington.

“Last year’s servicing mission left the observatory operating at peak capacity, giving it a new beginning for scientific achievements.”